The Best Faction: An explanation of lore and a question.

[camycamera]

great read, although lots of text.

i chose the republic, because i usually play the government/order-seeking faction.

and you forgot to mention that not only did they discover fancy laser weapons, they also discovered nano technology that allowed them to make vehicles out of thin air, and rebirthing that allows someone to essentially live forever, meaning that if they die, they are reconstructed in a tube to fight and die.

[ForTheRepublic]

Exactly. The only reason Vanu technology was off-limits is because the TR needed to regulate it and be careful, which they didn't have the time to do because of the NC.

[KesTro]

I like the story on how they discovered they were immortal with the warpgates. They were bickering over weather or not to send a human through it for a week or something like that and finally a mossi pilot got tired of it an just flew right through it, came out just fine on the other side. They went on get the pilot and had him executed only to find he appeared later on the planet. Executed him again, same thing. Again, same thing. SO finally the just gave up.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by KesTro

I like the story on how they discovered they were immortal with the warpgates. They were bickering over weather or not to send a human through it for a week or something like that and finally a mossi pilot got tired of it an just flew right through it, came out just fine on the other side. They went on get the pilot and had him executed only to find he appeared later on the planet. Executed him again, same thing. Again, same thing. SO finally the just gave up.

Yep, that's a great story but unfortunately it is from the Planetside 1 lore and doesn't apply to PS 2 . Shame, I think it's a really funny story to explain the discovery of respawning tech!

[Shamrock]

Originally Posted by Sonny

Yeah, this is the part of the lore I just don't get...

I understand the bit about the Vanu Sovereignty wanting to achieve 'enlightenment' or become 'transhuman' or whatever. They are scientists after all, have received messages from the alien god Vanu himself and have been working with alien technology found on Auraxis for almost 200 years.

But when it comes to the point that they turn into a hyper-aggressive faction who suddenly want to force their views on everyone - it doesn't make sense. Violent, war-thirsty scientists - really?

If they're so advanced technologically, why don't they just try and make a space fleet and bug out of Auraxis, colonise their own world? What's the advantage of fighting a long and mostly pointless war on Auraxis?

It would make sense if the Terran Republic or New Conglomerate had attacked them first and tried to destroy the Vanu Sovereignty before they could react. That would piss them off enough to start a war. Alternatively, maybe they had become so radical that they now saw humanity as 'sub-human' (or 'sub-Vanu' maybe is better ). Either way, this is not at all explained in the official stories.

There is a hole in the lore, and the VS backstory doesn't make sense.

Sonny

Here's my alternative take on the VS, in my mind the VS are in a similar situation to scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer during WW2 that fled an authoritarian regime whose ideology they found totally incompatible with their own. The VS scientists on top of re-birthing technology probably came to the conclusion that they didn't want the increasingly authoritarian Republic getting hold of any more Vanu derived tech such as energy weapons and anti gravity (Magriders). So the only option for them was to break away. The VS's beef with the NC is pretty obvious, the NC are basically just Mercs working for Earths Mega-Corps, in other words they are a private army working for their paymasters "bonus checks", and so they cant be trusted.

The VS enlightenment is pretty much down to human advancement through technology. Why bother having tech on external hardware when you can have micro devices embedded in you for instant information access and enhancement of visual/auditory senses. The Sci-Fi author Neil Asher which was recommended to me by a friend uses these themes a lot in his books and is worth checking out:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neal-Asher/e...ntt_dp_epwbk_0

[VaderShake]

If factions were movie stars...

TR = Susan Sarandon

VS = Tom Cruise

NC = Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Edfishy]

Originally Posted by KesTro

I like the story on how they discovered they were immortal with the warpgates. They were bickering over weather or not to send a human through it for a week or something like that and finally a mossi pilot got tired of it an just flew right through it, came out just fine on the other side. They went on get the pilot and had him executed only to find he appeared later on the planet. Executed him again, same thing. Again, same thing. SO finally the just gave up.

Yeah, personally I just head cannon PS1's lore for PS2. In PS1 It was much simpler and made more sense with the Terran Republic traveling through a wormhole and getting cut off from Earth. None of this "Papa Vanu" / "Corporate Overlords!" nonsense.

PS1's Story in a Nutshell:

TR: Formed a united earth through the Terran Republic, enabling centuries of progress via an iron boot. Resistance is brought back in line.

NC: Never successfully broke free from the TR on Earth, but being stranded on Auraxis put the odds in their favor, and victory on Auraxis would mean access to alien tech that could give resistance a fighting chance on Earth.

VS: Aren't stupid; Auraxis had a mysterious alien species called the "Vanu" that closed the wormhole and conveniently placed enough human-killing goodies in arm's reach to get a sense of "frying ants with a magnifying glass". Embracing the vastly superior aliens, their technology and ideologies is probably in the best interest of mankind, and might even tip the odds in humanity's favor were the aliens to be not-so-friendly.

[ForTheRepublic]

I still see no reason to side with the Vanu unless you're trying to make them less radical.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by Shamrock

Here's my alternative take on the VS, in my mind the VS are in a similar situation to scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer during WW2 that fled an authoritarian regime whose ideology they found totally incompatible with their own. The VS scientists on top of re-birthing technology probably came to the conclusion that they didn't want the increasingly authoritarian Republic getting hold of any more Vanu derived tech such as energy weapons and anti gravity (Magriders). So the only option for them was to break away. The VS's beef with the NC is pretty obvious, the NC are basically just Mercs working for Earths Mega-Corps, in other words they are a private army working for their paymasters "bonus checks", and so they cant be trusted.

The VS enlightenment is pretty much down to human advancement through technology. Why bother having tech on external hardware when you can have micro devices embedded in you for instant information access and enhancement of visual/auditory senses. The Sci-Fi author Neil Asher which was recommended to me by a friend uses these themes a lot in his books and is worth checking out:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neal-Asher/e...ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Interesting possibility! I can imagine the Vanu scientists getting increasingly furious seeing their discoveries being used by the Terran Republic for repression instead of for the benefit of humanity. Maybe they'd try to escape, and if they were desperate enough then I could imagine them taking up arms against the Terran Republic.

But a bunch of angry scientists doesn't seem like enough people to constitute a whole 'faction' that makes up 1/3rd of the population on the planet. Are there really thousands upon thousands of angry Vanu scientists on Auraxis?

Who are the rest of the Vanu Sovereignty? Are they fundamentalist followers of a Vanu 'religion' created by Henry Briggs and his alien visions 200 years before? Maybe they've been 'brainwashed' into some sort of Church of Scientology-style cult, and will fight to the death for their god ?

Or are they the citizens of Auraxis who, from the Vanu wreckage and archaeological sites across the planet, firmly believe that humanity's future in the stars. Would they believe it so firmly that they would fight the Terran Republic to the death to keep this future alive?

Or maybe a mixture of both? Or something completely different, what do you all think? I would like a few sentences from SOE explaining this type of stuff .

[ForTheRepublic]

All of those except for the third one accurately describe the Vanu. But the Republic wasn't using the technology for repression. They were just restricting its use so that they could continue once the NC quieted down.